3 October 2006

Speaking of the necessary unity of the liberation movement, ANC Secretary-General Kgalema Motlanthe said: “We found it here, we will leave it here”. (see the second linked item below).
The movement is here because of the likes of Thozamile Gqweta, who passed away on Monday 25 September 2006. His funeral will be held on Saturday 7 October at Peelton Village, King William’s Town. See the link below for the announcement and initial short tribute from COSATU, of which the late Gqwetha was one of the founders.
In an address to the Limpopo Provincial General Council of the ANC, Motlanthe further went on to expose the bait-and-switch story of the Regional Electricity Distributors (REDs) that are being carved out of ESKOM, the state electricity commission. These REDS are undoubtedly being set up for privitisation, on a profitable city-based model, with a further poor-relation RED for all the have-nots outside those cities. This is a call to arms for the labour movement. Somebody is cherry-picking these REDs.
ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma on the other hand has issued no such warnings as Motlanthe has done. So Michael Hamlyn, writing in the Business Report, which circulates all over the country as a supplement to the Independent Group newspapers, has noticed advantages for the bourgeoisie in adopting Zuma as their own. This article (linked below) is a manifesto for the real populism, the populism of the right, which aims to cash in on the mass following that an individual appears to personally own.
Hamlyn puts it like this: “…if (Zuma) is drafted into office on an overwhelming tide of support, he will not be beholden to any constituency.” Jackpot! What a prize for the bourgeoisie that could be! The electorate becomes a fan club, and the rest is easy, just a question of branding and marketing. Hamlyn goes on to cite the cases of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in the USA to argue that the bourgeois state can quite easily tolerate serious defects in a president. Of course he is absolutely right about that. But he is wrong about the South African masses, who are not likely to be deceived for long if Zuma sells out.
Cyril Madlala is another kind of revisionist as compared to Hamlyn. Madlala urges the black bourgeoisie to get back into ANC branch life and make sure that some other candidate than Zuma gets the nod for the post of ANC President in 2007 (probably not, from his point of view, a partisan of the working class like Kgalema Motlanthe). Madlala is right to say they have no right to moan if they do not do what he suggests. But it is rather late in the day from their point of view. ANC branches are in disarray, don’t meet, and often have not had a quorate AGM since 2004. The Christmas break is looming and the ANC National Conference is to be held during 2007. Local incumbents are hard to remove.
It’s hard not to suspect that Madlala’s real intended message is the practically the same as Hamlyn’s. See the link below for his full pitch, and judge for yourself. Reading it, you will know that you are being addressed as a member of the bourgeois middle classes. Madlala’s bottom line is class solidarity in favour of the status quo and against the messes.
The problem for the working class is not so much that the bourgeoisie is shaping up to co-opt Jacob Zuma, now that he begins to look like prime political property. This much was inevitable, and predicted by the Communist University. The problem is rather that Zuma has said nothing to stop this process. He has encouraged it and discouraged his former supporters. He could have named the names of those who plotted against him, as he promised to do, but he declined to do so.
Jacob Zuma was once courageous enough to stand up against the machinations of the Madunas and the Ngcukas and the proto-fascist movement they represented. His courage of that past time should not be forgotten. Yet part of the net result was to put on a plate in front of Zuma a brief opportunity to speak up as a tribune of the people. He declined. Instead, at the COSATU 9th Congress he delivered a standard-issue ANC speech, saying nothing. On the Friday following the Congress he called a press conference (thereby putting COSATU’s post-Congress press conference in the shade) and said nothing. Then the same weekend he made crass, idiotic remarks, in a contrived feudal setting, about hounding people for their sexual behaviour. This is from a man whose own private sexual behaviour had been (rightly) defended as his right by masses of people.
It might seem that the worst has occurred. But freedom is no more than the recognition of necessity. It was absolutely necessary to defend Jacob Zuma when state agencies were being used to suppress him politically. Now it is necessary to realise that Zuma has the freedom as an individual man to squander what has been won for him. It is necessary to see that shameful waste for what it is, very quickly, and not waste any further and unnecessary time on sentiment or wishful thinking. As Kgalema Motlanthe is pointing out, we must protect the democracy we have inherited. Whenever necessary we have to fight for it over again. At such times it helps to remember the likes of Thozamile Gqweta and what they really stood for.
Click on these links:Thozamile Gqweta, COSATU tribute and funeral announcement (465 words)Dont neglect the glue that holds us together, M Monare, The Star (430 words)Government urged to heed ANC policy, Moshoeshoe Monare, Star (471 words)Does Zuma popularity make him bad choice, Hamlyn, Business Report (658 words)Zuma detractors moan in ivory towers, Cyril Madlala, Business Day (832 words)